Brian Johnson

Episode 64: Velcro vs. Teflon

“ We’re still hard-wired the
same way: we pay more attention to the negative than to the positive.
As the psychologist and brain researcher Dr. Rick Hanson explained to
me during our interview, our brains are “Velcro for negativity and
Teflon for positivity.” Our negative experiences stick to us like
Velcro, while our positive experiences slide right off us like
Teflon. In fact, researchers have found that it takes numerous
positive experiences to overcome a single negative one!
Unfortunately, this wiring turns out to be disastrous for our
happiness.” ~ Marci Shimoff from Happy
for No Reason

Related Links:

Transcript

“ We’re still hard-wired the
same way: we pay more attention to the negative than to the positive.
As the psychologist and brain researcher Dr. Rick Hanson explained to
me during our interview, our brains are “Velcro for negativity and
Teflon for positivity.” Our negative experiences stick to us like
Velcro, while our positive experiences slide right off us like
Teflon. In fact, researchers have found that it takes numerous
positive experiences to overcome a single negative one!
Unfortunately, this wiring turns out to be disastrous for our
happiness.” ~ Marci Shimoff from Happy
for No Reason

There’s a great section in the book on the fact that we’re
descended from the “Nervous Nellies” and “Fearful Franks” of
the tribe. The peeps who really paid attention to the threats in the
environment were the ones who survived long enough to have kids who
then had kids who then had us.

As a result, in short, we have a “negativity bias” such that
negativity makes a greater impression on our brains and we have “hot
amygdalas” such that if we’re not careful, we’re gonna have a
*lot* more fight-or-flight adrenalin running through our system than
we want!

How do we deal with that?

Again, it goes back to re-wiring. Marci says: “I’m
not talking about wishful thinking, or simply deciding to be happier.
That’s like pasting a smiley face over our pain or spreading a
layer of icing over cake that’s burned to a cinder. The bad stuff
is still there. What I’m talking about is accessing the higher
center of your brain, your neocortex, to reverse the negativity bias
and override your primitive alarm system.”